A Wear Sensor System

2. The wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 1 wherein a plurality of housings are releasably installable into a particular apparatus, and each at least one sensor node in each housing is adapted to have at least one-way wireless communication to the gateway node.

3. The wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 2 wherein each sensor node, in the plurality of sensor nodes includes a unique identification means that enables the particular sensor node to be identified by the remote monitoring and management node.

5. The gateway node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 4 wherein said gateway node includes an analogue to digital converter that is adapted to measure the voltage levels that correspond to the individual sensor's wear state.

6. The gateway node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 4 wherein it includes power management means that are adapted to autonomously energise and de-energise the sensor node interface and/or the cellular modem to minimise power consumption, and if/when said gateway node is running on battery power, then the time between battery recharges is maximised.

7. The gateway node as defined in claim 6 wherein the gateway node includes a microcontroller that is adapted to energise the gateway node at pre-set intervals and transmit sensor data to the remote monitoring and management node.

10. The sensor node as defined in claim 9 wherein the physical wear on the printed circuit board is progressive, and as the wear progresses along the printed circuit board, individual components, or electrical connectors are broken or decoupled, thereby providing the sensor node with a plurality of either resistive, and/or capacitive, and/or inductive states, and these state changes are communicated with and monitored by the gateway node and used to determine the wear state of the particular component within the apparatus.

11. The sensor node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 8 wherein said sensor node includes a nest of conductive wire loops and each loop within the nest of conductive wire loops includes multiple series and parallel connected electrical components, and wherein the nest of conductive wire loops are arranged so that each of the conductive wire loops are physically disabled in sequence, by the abrasion, starting with the outermost conductive wire loop, so that as the abrasive wear continues, the resistance increases monotonically, and a direct current voltage source applied to the sensor node correspondingly makes the voltage change by the increase in the resistance, and this is measured by the gateway node and is used by the gateway node to determine the wear state of that particular component within the apparatus.

12. The sensor node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 11 including a nanotechnology based resistive loop wherein said resistive loop is fabricated on a silicon or glass wafer by depositing different materials using conventional nanofabrication techniques such as e-Beam evaporation, or sputtering, or Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) techniques to fabricate nano-resistors at discrete locations along a plurality of electrical connection lines, thereby eliminating the need to use comparatively larger conventional resistor components.

13. The sensor node as defined in claim 12 wherein the electrical connection lines are comparatively much smaller than conventional electrical connection lines when using conventional resistor components, and thereby said more electrical connection lines are able to be more densely packed within the sensor node so that the sensor node has many more resistive states as the sensor node physically wears away, and said many more resistive states is able to be monitored by the gateway node to determine more accurate wear information for that particular sensor node.

14. The sensor node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 8 wherein the at least one power supply includes Piezoelectric material and wherein the said at least one power supply is adapted to generate a sufficient electrical current to run the electronics incorporated within the sensor node by converting vibratory oscillations generated by the operation of the apparatus into electrical power.

15. The sensor node for use in the wear sensing and monitoring system as defined in claim 1 wherein the releasable fastening means includes an external thread that is adapted to screw into a complimentary hole with a corresponding internal thread in the apparatus.

16. The sensor node as defined in claim 15 wherein the body is shaped like a bolt, with a head portion and a shank portion, and wherein the releasable fastening means are included on the shank portion.

17. The sensor node as defined in claim 16 wherein the at least one antenna, printed circuit board, and the at least one microcontroller chip are contained within the head portion of the body.